All Things in Moderation

Welcome to the launch of our first ATiM Book Review.  This is something I’ve been thinking about since we first envisioned ATiM and honestly, I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get around to it.  I’m going to pull a popular Presidential move and choose our first book by “Executive Order” and have therefore chosen Suite Harmonic by Emily Meier.  Next time we’ll take suggestions and vote or something.  I’m reading I,Judas next, by Mark’s son-in-law, but don’t let that influence your vote.

Emily Meier (AllButCertain here at ATiM) has not only published six books, but has also launched her own publishing company, Sky Spinner Press, in the past year.  Suite Harmonic is her longest novel so we’ll get back together the weekend of April 13^th  for a discussion, that should be enough time for everyone to read it.  In the meantime, be thinking of suggestions for our next reading assignment……and try not to think of it as homework.

From a recent interview:

Her honors include Minnesota State Arts Board and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships and Loft Mentor and Loft McKnight awards. Her stories have been published in national literary journals, and she’s won national fiction contests at Florida Review and Passages North. One of her stories is in “The Second Penguin Book of Modern Women’s Short Stories.”

From her website:

During this 150th anniversary year of the beginning of the Civil War, Suite Harmonic:  A Civil War Novel of Rediscovery is the indispensable novel for readers interested in discovering the intense experience of both battlefield and homefront in the teeming world of the Civil War.

Excerpt from Chapter One:

It was eleven charged days since the 25th Indiana, Volunteer Infantry, had left St. Louis on the Continental and traveled with the fleet down the Mississippi. The men had watched warily as flatboats edged between ice floes. They’d rushed to fill buckets to keep the deck wet beneath the boat’s fiery chimneys. Steaming past canebrakes and turkeys perched on tree branches, they’d kept a lookout for guerrillas and spotted herons and red-tailed hawks flying at water’s edge, eyed pignut hickories and saw Judas trees not yet in bud. A steamer suddenly crossed their bow, and the captain reversed engines just in time to avoid a collision.

At Cairo, its broad levee swarming with soldiers, they escorted angry mutineers to quarters. One of them, hearing the west of Ireland in John’s voice, cursed him in Gaelic. At Paducah they saw an otherworldly boat, brightly lit: plumed officers and beautifully gowned women strolling its upper deck. Then, the Iatan had turned from the Ohio into the Tennessee. It had pushed down the western knob of Kentucky. It had steamed into Tennessee. It had entered the Confederacy itself where the citizens weren’t just wavering but gone. When at last the boat came into view of the Stars and Stripes newly flying on Fort Henry after the navy’s victory, a thunderous, foot-stomping yell erupted around John. The wood of the boat shuddered clear through him. He was cheering so loud his throat hurt. A big fight was coming. He knew it. They all did. 

Now, after a night bivouacking at Fort Henry and the march to Fort Donelson and the long, sleepless hours in front of the Confederate rifle pits, the fight had arrived.

You can purchase Emily’s book, Suite Harmonic, from Amazon here, or from her website here.  I hope many of you will read it and enjoy it, and then we can have a lively discussion afterward, beginning the weekend of April 13^th.  I’ve added a sidebar under the log in feature as a friendly reminder of our (my) choice of book and the date we’ll have our discussion as well as links for purchasing the book.

Filed under: 2012, Book Review, Emily Meier, Suite Harmonic | Tagged: Book Review, Emily Meier, Suite Harmonic | 20 Comments »